America faces its moment of Trump
The meteoric rise of Donald Trump, the Republican frontrunner who is giving the Establishment 3D nightmares, is the natural outcome of a political system that has been arrogantly ignoring the will of the American electorate for many years.
What started off as cheap comic fodder for late night television, and later ignored by the elite as an unfortunate yet containable nuisance, has now exploded on the scene as a destructive force of nature capable of blowing away the Establishment’s corporate-owned power structure.
Yes, we are talking about The Donald, a Category-5 political hurricane that is expected to cause major devastation should it touchdown in the Beltway.
So anxious are the Democrats (and Republicans!) to contain the mighty Trump they will even deny his First Amendment right to address his supporters. Yes, while many Americans travel great distances at their own expense to listen to Trump’s white-hot political message, perennial provocateur George Soros must pay his puppets to erect roadblocks and hoist placards to deny free passage to the venues.
Who says ‘freedom-loving,’ liberal activists lack a sense of irony?
Last week, for example, demonstrations in Chicago organized by the Soros-funded MoveOn.org group forced Trump to cancel a speaking engagement. Later, on March 20, members of the same subversive outfit blocked traffic near a Trump event in Arizona, while police in New York City the same day pepper-sprayed demonstrators, some of whom are affiliated with violent anarchist groups.
And then there’s the corporate-owned media, which, instead of impartially and dispassionately reporting on Trump’s rising star, is working on behalf of its owners to knock it out of the sky.
Here is a random CNN smear piece, which opens with the angst-ridden line: “Anti-Trump Republicans desperate to stop the billionaire from being their nominee are discussing creative ways to halt his momentum.” So the story now is not about the millions of Americans who support Trump’s political ideas, nor even discussing what those ideas might be, but rather about how the “racist, misogynist, sexist” outsider must be stopped.
Consider these two competing lines from another CNN article, and how they work to manipulate the mind of the reader regarding the “boastful” Trump and the “proud” Clinton:
“Trump repeatedly boasts about the failure of millions of dollars in attack aids to wound his campaign, and insists he is on pace to reach the 1,237 delegates needed to win the nomination.”
While the very next about Clinton reads:
“Clinton said she was “very proud” to have won Arizona and hit Republican candidates who she said were ‘literally inciting bigotry and violence.’”
But it is not just the Democrats and the liberal media working to sabotage Trump’s campaign.
Incredibly, even the Republican Party is “plotting against their own frontrunner,” as Judge Jeanine Pirro of Fox News explained. But why would the GOP work against Trump if he represents the best chance of beating Hillary Clinton?
Pirro nails it with this answer to herself: “The Republican establishment… are in bed with the Democrats. So if Hillary wins, nothing is lost for them. It’s business as usual. The lobbyists keep their offices on K Street, the pharmaceutical companies keep paying them… and the lawmakers get their re-election bribes – I mean, contributions.”
Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich, when asked to explain the elite’s refusal to support Trump, perhaps gave away a bit too much information when he said: “Well, because he’s an outsider, he’s not them, he’s not part of the club, he’s uncontrollable, he hasn’t been through the initiation rites, he didn’t belong to the secret society.”
Initiation rites? Secret societies? Secret handshakes? Did Newt just join ranks with the conspiracy theorists?
Although many people are skeptical about the circumstances behind Trump’s phenomenal rise, the tycoon (Trumps says he’s worth $8.7 billion, Forbes puts it at $4.1, a difference that probably means something among the ultra-wealthy), manages to sell himself as a successful businessman who will, at the same time, work on behalf of average American workers.
One of his regular claims – aside from promising to make the Mexican government pay for a wall on the US border – is to stop US factory jobs from going to India, China and Mexico. Annoying pledges like that, which would cut deeply into Corporate America’s bottom line, goes far at explaining why the elite loath him and your average mortal adores him.
Although it is a delicious sight watching America’s movers and shakers tremble at the mere mention of Trump’s name, it nevertheless speaks volumes about the condition of US democracy that Americans had to wait for a rich, charismatic real estate developer to come along and save them from the cold-hearted wretchedness of the dual-party, borderline-fascist system. Imagine what the US would look like without the arrival of these rare, mega-wealthy mavericks who were born with a compassion gene for ordinary folks. The Establishment would continue unmolested with its ‘too-big-to-jail’ banker bailouts, overseas military misadventures and the dangerous consolidation of corporate power.
Trump’s ability to speak freely on the issues without any concern for breaking the bank is exactly how an honest political system should be organized. Indeed, how many US politicians today, as the US information war against Russia resembles something out of Tom Clancy thriller, would admit they’d work with the Kremlin to resolve global problems? No politician should be wary of discussing a controversial subject that is dear to the heart of the electorate for fear of chasing away campaign donors.
Case in point: The immigrant crisis, which the Obama administration arrogantly ignored at great peril. This polarizing issue largely explains Trump’s huge popularity among voters today.
The specter of Mexican immigrants flooding the country – and with the full blessing of Washington, not to mention the Vatican (Trump is certainly the first politician in history to have traded barbs with the Bishop of Rome on the campaign trail) – may go down in the history books as the proverbial straw that finally broke the Establishment’s back. In any case, it will certainly go down as the issue that launched Trump’s political career and, quite possibly, destroyed the Republican Party as we know it.
Americans had to bite their tongues as they got screwed over in the 2008 Financial Crisis, and maintained their pharmaceutically induced composure as Obama proved to be every bit of a warmongering president as his Neocon predecessor. But let’s face it: no American homeowner is going to keep quiet while their neighborhood is invaded by illegal aliens. Indeed, American streets are already respectable crime zones in their own right, we certainly don’t need any help from illegal aliens, thank-you-very-much.
Now before somebody screams ‘Hitler!’ in this political theater of the absurd, let’s put the situation into its proper context: At the very same time US companies are exporting thousands of good-paying factory jobs south of the border, Mexico is exporting not much more to America than its social riff-raff. According to government figures, US corporations employed 1,106,700 Mexicans (on Mexican soil) in 2012 (the latest year tallied), but Mexican companies employed just 68,800 in the United States that year.
So Trump seems to have some leverage when he says Mexico should foot the bill to build a wall on the US-Mexican border.
But the crazy is just beginning. Once north of the Rio Grande, the fence hoppers voluntarily turn themselves over to US Border Patrol agents, who then proceed to give the Mexicans a Coke and a smile before telling them to have a nice day and please don’t forget to show up for your scheduled court appearance.
Next, newly downsized Joe Trailer Park is called upon to fund bus tickets for the uninvited Mexicans to travel to the US city of their choosing. Only the government could script such a narrative. But wait, it gets better! What about the promise the illegals made to appear in court, thus becoming patriotic, flag-saluting, Americans? Sorry, no time for formalities!
Hector Garza, a Border Patrol agent and spokesperson for the National Border Patrol Council told Breitbart that approximately 95 percent of the illegal immigrants never return as promised for court proceedings.
“The majority of these people crossed the border illegally and were then dropped off here at the bus station, so they could continue to their final destination, and that destination is an American city near you,” said Garza. “This right here is border insecurity at its best. Our border is not patrolled… our federal government is releasing thousands and thousands of illegal aliens into our communities.”
If there was a better way of conjuring up the bygone spirits of nationalistic right-wing parties, I really can’t imagine it.
And since the entire notion of ‘strong national borders’ has somehow morphed into political-correct-speak for ‘racism’, these people are not sent scurrying back to where they came from. No, sending a message to other would-be trespassers would be too logical, and logic took a backseat in the American Trailblazer a long time ago.
Trump’s popularity, however, cannot be only explained by the specter of porous borders with Mexico. After all, America’s great disillusionment with its political system has been steadily intensifying, and all the more once it became painfully obvious that the ‘hope and change’ that Barack Obama had promised was just more smoke and mirrors.
Drew Weston, in a devastating 2011 essay in the New York Times, summed up Obama’s failure to put the country on the right track after being derailed by George W. Bush’s reckless 8-year ‘war on terror.’
“Barack Obama stared into the eyes of history and chose to avert his gaze. Instead of indicting the people whose recklessness wrecked the economy, he put them in charge of it.
“He never explained that decision to the public…”
A bit later, Weston wrote:
“Nor did anyone explain why saving the banks was such a priority, when saving the homes the banks were foreclosing didn’t seem to be. All Americans knew… is that they’re still unemployed, they’re still worried about how they’re going to pay their bills at the end of the month and their kids still can’t get a job.”
Here is my personal reason for supporting Trump. Aside from his inspiring message of securing America’s border, ending US military adventures and reinvigorating the US economy, a Trump presidency will halt America’s slide towards family dynasties ruling the country like hereditary monarchies.
Consider: If Hillary Clinton wins the presidency in 2016, and assuming she is reelected for a second term in 2020, the American people will have been ruled since 1989 by two Bushes and two Clintons (for a total of 28 years out of 36, with a non-consequential 8-year intermission by America’s first black president).
Barbara Bush, the wife of an ex-president and mother of another, expressed her lack of enthusiasm for yet another Bush entering the White House (although for the record it must be noted that she was speaking about Jeb, not the shiniest apple on the Bush family tree).
“I think this is a . . . great country and if we can’t find more than two or three families to run for high office, that’s silly,” she told C-Span early last year. “I think that the Kennedys, Clintons, Bushes – there are just more families than that.”
But is America ready for a Trump Dynasty?
Judging by the escapades of the powerful Democratic and Republican Establishment, which is pulling out all the stops to ‘dump Trump,’ the charismatic, billionaire real estate developer probably stands a worse chance of winning the keys to the White House mansion than Justin Bieber.
There’s simply no way the Washington elite will willingly release their grip on the most powerful office in the world, even if such a thing would mean restoring some of America’s former shine.
Robert Bridge is an American writer and journalist based in Moscow, Russia. His articles have been featured in many publications, including Russia in Global Affairs, The Moscow Times, Russia Insider and Rethinking Russia. Bridge is the author of the book on corporate power, “Midnight in the American Empire”, which was released in 2013.
@Robert_Bridge
March 24, 2016 -
Posted by aletho |
Economics, Timeless or most popular | Human rights, United States
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